"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep," Obama cautioned. Young and charismatic but with little experience on the national level, Obama smashed through racial barriers and easily defeated ...

In his comments Monday, Obama downplayed the social and political tensions in America.“I know sometimes,” the president asserted,“when you watch cable news or talk radio, or you browse the Internet, you’d think, man, everybody just hates each other, everybody is just at each other’s throats. But that’s not how most Americans think about these issues. There are good people on both sides of every issue.”

This is a red herring. The essential division in America is not between those who advocate gun control and those opposing it, or between Democrat and Republican, but between the ruling political and economic elite, on the one hand, who control every important aspect of life, and the working population, on the other, who make up the overwhelming and disenfranchised majority of the American people. That divide has widened to unprecedented and nearly unbearable proportions.

The population at present is under an all-sided attack on its jobs, retirement benefits, working and living conditions, medical care, educational opportunities and democratic rights. A wealthy handful view broad layers of the people as nothing more than easy pickings for financial plunder or cannon fodder for its neo-colonial wars.

The economic and psychological security of tens of millions has been dealt devastating blows. Vast numbers of Americans see little between them and the social abyss.

US authorities are pursuing relentless militarism and violence in every part of the globe. The president and his military-intelligence apparatus have arrogated to themselves the right to make war on any country or individual who steps out of line, or merely threatens to. The problem of CIA “black sites” and illegal detention has been reduced through recourse to a policy of murdering political opponents.

The American government’s official policy—and, for that matter, the policy of every state and local police department in the US—of resolving every dispute though overwhelming and lethal force, eagerly encouraged by the media, hangs over life in the US like a filthy cloud and must distort the consciousness of the weakest, most susceptible individuals.

The following comment by Obama on Monday should be considered in light of the US government’s murder of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen never charged with a crime, and his 16-year-old son, along with thousands of civilians killed in drone attacks:“If there is even one step we can take to keep somebody from murdering dozens of innocents in the span of minutes, shouldn’t we be taking that step? If there is just one thing we can do to keep one father from having to bury his child, isn’t that worth fighting for?” In the words of Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux, the worst mass shooter in America is “an amateur by comparison” with Obama and his cohorts.

While a significant portion of the population feel mistrust or hatred of Washington and Wall Street, alienation from the major political parties and unions and a general disgust for the existing state of things, they do not yet see—and, for the most part, cannot yet even envision—a mass movement in opposition to the profit system that would offer some way out of the present disastrous situation.

The specific conjuncture helps creates an intensely unstable, unsettling and volatile popular mood.

Obama reached what might have been the height of cynicism in his remarks Monday when he referred to surveys indicating that “90 percent of Americans” are in favor of “universal background checks.”

This is the same administration that declares that wide opposition to the ongoing war in Afghanistan, for example, will not deter it from pursuing the occupation, that it will not “govern by opinion polls.” Every survey currently reveals vast opposition to any cutting of Social Security, 90 percent in some polls, and yet both parties in Washington ruthlessly push ahead.

Obama acted the demagogue in Hartford. Concluding his remarks, the president told his audience:

“If you believe in the right to bears arms, like I do, but think we should prevent an irresponsible few from inflicting harm—stand up. Stand up… If we come together and raise our voices together and demand this change together, I’m convinced cooperation and common sense will prevail. We will find sensible, intelligent ways to make this country stronger and safer for our children.”

In fact, the corporate-financial stranglehold over life in the US, enforced by the two-party system as a whole and the Obama administration in particular, is the ultimate source of every burning social ill, including anti-social mayhem. Capitalism represents the gravest danger to the conditions and very lives of the American people. The sooner conscious opposition to the system assumes a mass character, the sooner the social, political and cultural climate will change for the better.

<quoted text>I realize that the point flew 0ver your head like most intelligent comments.Its a tax break because there of taxation when the contributions are made is likely higher than the tax rate paid when they money is withdrawn.If you make jointly $150K taxable, you would pay 28%. But say after retirement, your taxable income is $70,000 and you pay 15%.Wow, that is a break of 12%.How did you become such a dumbass?

RealDave are you for Real, the individual has been tax twice on the Same Money!! When he Earn it now when he/she withdrew it… What Tax Break!!

<quoted text>Likely for his anti gay statements in the past.When St Josephs had him be a commencement speaker in 2003, all the students walked out when he took the podium because his bigoted views on homosexuality.

"All"? Now for the truth

"Several dozen students walked out of Sunday's commencement ceremonies at St. Joseph's University, where Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was receiving an honorary degree."

Strong Economic Medicine” Triggers Poverty: Communities across America Feel Impact of Obama’s Sequestration CutsThe effects of the sequestration order signed by President Obama on March 1 began to be felt in earnest beginning April 1. The $85 billion cut in federal spending through September 30 will affect federal workers’ jobs across a wide range of government departments and will impose deep cutbacks to education, housing and many social programs and services, which are depended on by millions of working-class families.

Over one million federal workers are set to begin unpaid furloughs this month, amounting to pay cuts of anywhere from 20 to 30 percent. Sequestration has also prompted the extension of a pay freeze already in force for federal workers. The cuts will result in the equivalent of 750,000 full-time job losses throughout the economy, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Other projections place the job losses as high as 2 million with the cuts reducing the gross domestic product by 0.6 percent this year.

Even as the US Labor Department announced last week that the number of people applying for jobless benefits had jumped to a four-month high, extended unemployment benefits are being cut by about 11 percent as a result of the sequester. As just one example, 99,000 unemployed workers in Pennsylvania will see their benefits cut by 10.7 percent, while some 2,700 in the state may lose their benefits altogether.

The devastating impact of sequestration appears to be the “new normal,” serving as the model for future budget proposals for both big-business parties. On Wednesday, Barack Obama will formally present his fiscal year 2014 budget, which includes deep cuts to Medicare and other health programs, as well as an attack on the inflation adjustment for Social Security recipients.(See “Obama defends plan to cut Medicare and Social Security”)

Sequestration calls for cuts of $42.7 billion to discretionary defense spending,$28.7 billion in nondefense discretionary spending,$9.9 billion from Medicare, and $4 billion in other mandatory reductions. It is becoming clear that the cutbacks will have a devastating impact on workers and the poorest sections of society, who have already seen a drastic decline in living standards in the wake of the recession.

Nondiscretionary funding for the military is not affected by the sequester, leaving in place the vast military machine of the US, as it continues its occupation of Afghanistan and US officials ratchet up their threats against North Korea. The departments of Defense and Homeland Security have also been allowed some discretion in the implementation of civilian furloughs and other measures.

Smearing those Who Speak the Truth: The Media Myth of “Regime Apologists.Everything You Know About Money Is WrongWe Can’t Fix What We Don’t UnderstandBloomberg notes this week that the conventional theory of why money was created is wrong:

There are, broadly speaking, two accounts of the origin and history of money. One is elegant, intuitive and taught in many introductory economics textbooks. The other is true.

The financial economist Charles Goodhart, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee, laid out the two views in a 1998 paper,“The Two Concepts of Money: Implications for the Analysis of Optimal Currency Areas.”

The first view, the “M View,” is named after the Austrian 19th century economist and historian Karl Menger, whose 1882 essay “On the Origins of Money” is the canonical statement of an argument that goes back to Aristotle:

As subsistence farming gives way to more complex economies, individuals want to trade. Simple barter (eight bushels of wheat for one barrel of wine) quickly becomes inefficient, because a buyer’s desires won’t always match up with a seller’s inventory. If a merchant comes through the village with wine and all a farmer has to offer is wheat, but the merchant wants nuts, there’s no trade and both parties walk away unfulfilled. Or the farmer has to incur the costs of finding another merchant who will exchange wheat for nuts and then hope that the first merchant hasn’t moved on to the next village.

But if the merchant and the farmer can exchange some other medium, then the trade can happen. This medium of exchange has to be what Menger calls “saleable,” meaning that it’s easily portable, doesn’t spoil over time and can be divided. Denominated coins work, shells and beads also fit the bill. So do cigarettes in POW camps and jails and Tide laundry detergent for drug dealers. This process, Menger argues, happens without the intervention of the state:“Money has not been generated by law. In its origin it is a social, and not a state institution.”[Menger's view is the commonly-accepted theory of money.]

Goodhart points out, however, that Menger is just wrong about the actual history of physical money, especially metal coins. Goodhart writes that coins don’t follow Menger’s account at all. Normal people, after all, can’t judge the quality of hunks of metal the same way they can count cigarettes or shells. They can, however, count coins. Coins need to be minted, and governments are the ideal body to do so. Precious metals that become coins are, well, precious, and stores of them need to be protected from theft. Also, a private mint will always have the incentive to say its coins contain more high-value stuff than they actually do. Governments can last a long time and make multi-generational commitments to their currencies that your local blacksmith can’t.

<quoted text>Yes, we know all about your life, beating up and stalking the homeless, spitting on them, picking up diapers in the hallway of your project building. You're a pathetic old wretch, comes out in every post.But, karmas gonna gitcha Janey, hit you right in the head, better get yourself together, soon you're gonna be dead.

<quoted text>"All"? Now for the truth"Several dozen students walked out of Sunday's commencement ceremonies at St. Joseph's University, where Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum was receiving an honorary degree."Do you ever tell the truth?

Yep, got me there.

I should have sad some or a lot of students & 30 faculty walked out. Many did not attend. Many protested by wearing rainbow tassels on their caps but stayed. After all, it was their commencement & refused to let the bigot Santorum ruin it any further.

<quoted text>Apparently you haven't been following Flacko's post's on this or his other threads for the last five years eh?He's been consistently wrong on every topic because he only reads the headline and let's that little chicken that runs around in his mind take over the splainin.I've known folks like Flack since a teen hanging out at Grange meetings with my dad the farmer.But unlike your twisted self, Flack is honest, interesting and an important part of what makes this thread worth the time.

My question wasn't about flack. It was about you. Why don't you answer it. It's dishonest to leave out part af a title so you are the twisted liar, not me.

<quoted text>I realize that the point flew 0ver your head like most intelligent comments.Its a tax break because there of taxation when the contributions are made is likely higher than the tax rate paid when they money is withdrawn.If you make jointly $150K taxable, you would pay 28%. But say after retirement, your taxable income is $70,000 and you pay 15%.Wow, that is a break of 12%.How did you become such a dumbass?

Um stupid you don't pay 28% on the entire 150k. You pay 15% on that 70k even if you make a billion dollars. Wheres the tax break?

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